Universal Music Group‘s Interscope Records is suing Summer Walker for more than USD $50 million over recordings it says the R&B artist has not delivered.
The lawsuit follows Walker‘s move to leave her deal with Interscope under a California law known as the “seven-year rule.”
That’s according to Billboard, which obtained the complaint and reported that Interscope filed it on October 9.
Walker signed a joint deal with Interscope and Atlanta-based label and management company LVRN in 2017.
In a letter sent in August, her attorneys notified Interscope that she would stop working under the agreement as of August 27.
The seven-page complaint, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that Walker has delivered only three of the five albums required under her contract.
Those are her 2019 debut studio album Over It, 2021‘s Still Over It, and 2025‘s Finally Over It.
Her 2018 mixtape Last Day of Summer and 2019 EP CLEAR are classed as “pre-album projects” that do not count toward that total, according to Rolling Stone, which also obtained the complaint.
Still Over It reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200, while the other two albums each peaked at No. 2.
Interscope is seeking more than USD $50 million in damages for the two albums and an EP it says Walker still owes, with the final figure to be set at trial.
The seven-year rule bars anyone in California from being held to a contract for their personal services for more than seven years.
It is best known from actress Olivia de Havilland‘s 1944 court victory over film studio Warner Bros.
Under a 1987 amendment, which the RIAA lobbied for, a label can claim damages from an artist who uses the rule to leave before delivering all the albums they agreed to make.
Labels must bring that kind of claim within 45 days of the termination date set out in the artist’s notice.
Interscope filed its lawsuit close to the end of that window.
“While we remain hopeful that our ongoing discussions will lead to an amicable resolution, the statutory deadline makes it necessary to file suit in order to preserve the terms of our contract,” a spokesperson for Interscope told Billboard. “We have great respect for Summer and her music and would welcome the opportunity to continue our successful partnership.”
“While we remain hopeful that our ongoing discussions will lead to an amicable resolution, the statutory deadline makes it necessary to file suit in order to preserve the terms of our contract.”
Interscope spokesperson (via Billboard)
Walker‘s attorney, Keith Moten, said in a statement reported by Rolling Stone that her team intends to “vigorously defend against Interscope’s claims and pursue appropriate legal relief.”
He said Walker plans to countersue and that her team is confident in her legal position, though she remains open to a “constructive resolution.”
LVRN, which signed Walker alongside Interscope in 2017, has since exited the joint venture it ran with the label.
Matt Pincus‘s investment firm MUSIC took a minority stake in LVRN in a deal, announced in January 2023, that valued the company at more than USD $100 million.
“We’re still partners with them on Summer Walker and on 6lack, but everything else, we are fully independent now with Matt’s investment,” LVRN CEO Tunde Balogun told MBW in June.
LVRN now has a distribution deal with Sony Music-owned The Orchard.
Labels have brought damages suits like Interscope‘s before, including one filed by Warner Bros. Records against Avenged Sevenfold in 2016.
MCA, now part of UMG, sued members of New Edition and Bell Biv DeVoe in 1998.
Geffen and its parent UMG sued Courtney Love and her band Hole in 2000 over undelivered albums, and Love cited the statute in a countersuit to get out of her contract.
Thirty Seconds to Mars invoked the statute in its defense when EMI sued the band for USD $30 million in 2008.
The Love and Thirty Seconds to Mars cases both ended in settlements.
In July, a federal judge refused to dismiss regional Mexican band Fuerza Regida‘s claim that the rule has freed it from its deal with Rancho Humilde, as MBW reported.
US District Judge Hernán D. Vera did not, however, decide whether the band is actually free of its contract.
Artist advocates have repeatedly tried, and failed, to get California lawmakers to repeal the 1987 amendment, according to Billboard.
Supporters of repeal argue that the threat of large damages claims discourages artists from invoking the seven-year rule.
The RIAA has argued that the provision protects the money labels invest in artists, and that without it labels would be able to take fewer chances on new acts.Music Business Worldwide
